Wolf in sheep's clothing, poser or just another wagon? I'm havin' fun!

[OLD MAN]

Jay - from the movie What about Bob - " I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,I need,"

Ok I'm done -

Looking forward to a driving up date!

[MurphysLaww]

Absolutely love that color.

enjoy !

[jayhudson]

Today is one of those milestone days I've been waiting for. The motor is complete! Today, I'm taking the car in to begin the swap. As I see it there are 3 phases to be completed before I pick it up. 1) Do the r/r of the motor and associated goodies. More will be revealed in future updates. 2) Do the exhaust work to connect the new headers to the existing Magnaflow catback. 3) Dyno time.

I'll post an update, with pics, of the motor assembly. Should be in the next couple of days. I have to depend on them to take pics and I'll gather up the latest batch when I drop the car off. Later updates will include the swap process and final results.

Very excited!

Jay

[jdholder]

Awesome Jay!!!

Keep showing us pics! You are an inspiration with your build!

Jon

[OLD MAN]

Very nice!

[jayhudson]

Awesome Jay!!!

Keep showing us pics! You are an inspiration with your build!

Jon

Thanks Jon. Couldn't have done it without you :-) Nice to see you're paying attention.

Jay

[ffej]

Today is one of those milestone days I've been waiting for. The motor is complete! Today, I'm taking the car in to begin the swap. As I see it there are 3 phases to be completed before I pick it up. 1) Do the r/r of the motor and associated goodies. More will be revealed in future updates. 2) Do the exhaust work to connect the new headers to the existing Magnaflow catback. 3) Dyno time.

I'll post an update, with pics, of the motor assembly. Should be in the next couple of days. I have to depend on them to take pics and I'll gather up the latest batch when I drop the car off. Later updates will include the swap process and final results.

Very excited!

Jay

Seriously, Jay. You make my car look amateur in comparison. Well done

[jayhudson]

Thanks ffej. You're too kind. Hopefully I'll do some track time with it before too long. New pics below :-)

Jay

- - - Updated - - -

This update will show various pics of the engine assembly up to the point where I dropped the car off for the swap yesterday. Not too much in the way of comments since I’m only knowledgeable about a few things S54 internal.

The motor has been timed and the VANOS tweaked/adjusted(?). Above my pay grade. I believe he also said the valves had been adjusted. Oil pan was being bolted on as I was leaving.

We begin… bottom end assembly was previously completed by the machine shop.




Oil pump




OPN loctited and staked






Install fresh head




Install cams and fuel rail




Water pump and oil filter housing


VANOS assembly


Beisan Systems oil pump disk




These are the upgraded VANOS sprocket bolts. Cheap but expensive to get to if not done at the time of engine build. Many instances of grenaded motors from the old style bolts. Big peace of mind here.


VANOS installation




Motor mounts installed. Left side mount is M3 with provision to relocate the PS reservoir. You can also see the bottom side of the headers.

I hope to have nice pics of completed motor prior to it’s installation.

Jay

[ffej]

Holy Mother Love Bone!

Jay, I'm serious when I say this - and yes, I know it's a little soon - but when you might think about selling, please, Please, PLEASE call me first. You know how much this project excites me.

[jayhudson]

BTW, if any of you are motivated to contact Markert Motor Works, please tell them how you became aware of them. It's helpful if they know they're getting referrals by way of bf.c and me.

Thanks - Jay

[jayhudson]

This segment of the build will cover r/r of the motor and drive line and some other details. Here we go……..

A couple of pics with the Status Gruppe headers installed.





2.5L M54 before being removed.



6sp out. Soon to have new AutoSolutions Ultimate SSK, fluid and seals.



Nice view of the Bimmerworld lightweight flywheel and Kevlar clutch.





Ready to come out and on the hook.





Empty bay.





All set to go in.



Tidied up a little and ready for new occupant.



Bam! Found a new home.



Tranny back in.





Drive line reconnected.



New expansion tank installed. Easy bleed with this setup. I hated bleeding my race car (e36m3).



Oil cooler fittings and installed lines. This is the shiznit.





Here’s the Setrab cooler mounted behind the kidney grills. Also, a look from below.





As you may remember I’m about 100 miles from the shop. They’ve been keeping me updated with texts and a few cell phone pics. Each time I visit the shop I collect a group of pics they’ve taken for me, with my camera, and create another build segment on bf.c. Thanks to the guys at the shop they connected with me on Facetime to be present for the initial start-up the other night. So, I was “there” for the birth of the frankenwagon. A little anti-climactic because the sound was awful. Too much resonance from inside the shop. Never the less, I was happy to be part of it. When I drove down yesterday I heard it in person. Jeebus, that thing is loud without any exhaust connected.

I also have a very short cell phone video of the car’s first drive. Sounds terrific! Again, with no exhaust. I’d like to add the video to this build thread but I’m not sure how to do it. I’ve been able to email it with no problems. It’s a dot mov file, less than 10 secs. If anyone can give a technical dunderhead some simple directions I’ll add it.

The car should be at the exhaust shop today. I’ll post a segment on that once it’s completed and I have some pics.

That’s all for now - Jay

[m3bs]

Saw the video on Markert's Facebook page. Looking forward to seeing it on the track sometime.

[jayhudson]

Saw the video on Markert's Facebook page. Looking forward to seeing it on the track sometime.

Soon, I hope.

Jay

[jayhudson]

This update will cover the exhaust work. Here are pics of the OE center section of the exhaust connected to the MagnaFlow cat-back section. The cat-back is a minimum of 2.25” all the way back and will be re-used.







Here are the Status Gruppe S54 headers in polished stainless. I’m told they won’t stay this shiny for long. OK by me. I’m not crazy about the chrome look but I didn’t want to spend the extra money for the ceramic coating.







Now for the creative work. David Green, owner of Syncro Design Works in Kennesaw, GA, fabbed the new center section using stainless pipe and mandrel bends. He has a FB page if anyone is interested in viewing his work or contacting him. He’s an engineer and also creates some sexy suspension pieces for various BMWs.

In another cost cutting effort he used the Status Gruppe anti-rasp pipe, with his modifications, instead of creating the entire center section in-house. He was favorably impressed with the quality of the Status Gruppe pieces except for one troubling issue. The alignment between the S54 headers and the anti-rasp pipe was off quite a bit. It required some extra work and fabbing to overcome. These two pieces are supposed to be a direct match and come with matching stainless steel flanges. This pic shows the misalignment. The owner of Status Gruppe was helpful in finding a solution.



Now, on to the fab work. The MF cat-back was cut right in front of the cross-pipe segment and extended pieces were fabbed to connect to the rear end of the Status Gruppe anti-rasp pipe.







Here you can see the modified front of the MF cat-back connected to the rear of the anti-rasp pipe.



Here are a couple of pics of the entire center section. In the last shot you can just see the flanges on the collectors.





David was happy with the overall package of off the shelf parts with some custom fab work vs. a complete custom exhaust system at 2-3 times the cost. He also said it was about half the weight of the pieces it replaced. Since it’s not a race car and will be mostly street driven this should do just fine. We’ll see what the dyno says.

I haven’t heard it yet. I’ll share my impressions once I pick up the car and get a chance to spend some freeway time on my 2 hour drive home. Hopefully, not too loud and no droning.

Next up a few finishing touches and off to the dyno. If things go well and the weather cooperates I'll be able to pick it up by next week.

Jay

[FastFabM3]

Looks really nice Jay! This is very much like what I'm planning for my E36, so I'll be interested to hear your impressions on how it sounds also, as well as dyno data of course! Great progress, you're going to have a really awesome car when you're done!

[DrBobOh]

This is so cool! Big fan of wagons and would love to rock a wagon like this someday.

[jayhudson]

Looks really nice Jay! This is very much like what I'm planning for my E36, so I'll be interested to hear your impressions on how it sounds also, as well as dyno data of course! Great progress, you're going to have a really awesome car when you're done!

OR huh? Do I know you? Don't recognize your screen name. I lived in Grants Pass for 19 yrs before moving here 4 yrs ago.

I can tell you my race car was pretty loud but very streetable. It did have some droning when under load at certain RPMs. Exhaust consisted of OE headers, CATs removed, OE silencer and UUC System U catback.

Jay

- - - Updated - - -

This is so cool! Big fan of wagons and would love to rock a wagon like this someday.

There are some nice ones that come up from time to time. I recently saw a 5er Touring that had several mods. IIRC, a 530 bumped up to 540 motor (not sure of the designations).

Jay

[jayhudson]

Dyno results. Dave (Markert Motor Works) did 13 runs starting with the base US tune and working his magic to eliminate problem spots while increasing HP and torque. He tells me he has tuned several S54s and this one is almost 20HP higher than any before it. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that they did the bottom up build with freshly built and tweaked VANOS. Graphs below show the stock US tune and the final tune that's in the car now.





I'm very happy with these numbers and can't wait to drive it. If everything goes as planned the car will be home by the weekend :-)

Jay

[FastFabM3]

Jay,

I doubt we know each other, but I'm sure if you lived in southern OR long enough, we probably know some of the same people.

Great results on the dyno! It goes to show how important dyno tuning is and how much it can be worth. I hate seeing people throw tons of upgrades and add-ons onto their car and then something as basic as the over-all tune will just be way off. Looks like you're really doing things right!

[jayhudson]

Leaving in a few minutes to go pick him up. Yippeeee!

Jay

[jayhudson]

So, the trip home was uneventful. Car ran fine. I didn't have an opportunity to give it a try so decided to wait until I could take advantage of a back road or two I was familiar with. Saturday was a nice day here so I went for a little ride and spent some time washing and cleaning. The torque is awesome. This car has some giddy-up! I'm not crazy about the sound from inside the car but bet it sounds great outside. The throttle response is snappy. There are some differences that will take me some time to get used to. Just some quality time driving around to get used to the shift points and new shifter. At this point the car is a little harder to drive smoothly but I suspect I'll get used to it.

As the day went on I realized I was getting sick. Since then I haven't really felt like trying to take pictures or driving any more. Now the sunny weather is gone for several days and I'm still feeling crummy. So final pics of the engine bay will have to wait. Trust me, it's beautiful. They did a very nice job and cleaned up the engine bay. This doesn't look like a hack job at all. I'll get pics as soon as the weather cooperates.

Jay

[jayhudson]

I'm feeling better but the weather still isn't cooperating so I took these pics in the garage using a DSLR with flash. Didn't turn out too bad.







One of the things that was necessary was to relocate the windshield washer fluid tank because the S54 coolant expansion tank took it's spot. The "drug bin" was a perfect spot but the e46 unit was a little too large so they used and e36 tank and built a custom bracket. Nice job. Attention to detail.



One thing missing is the e46m3 air duct that attaches to the top of the radiator cross member and directs air to the CAI. I think it also sends air to the alternator but I can't remember. I'll research what parts are needed and see what I can do to recreate. Should be pretty much an easy fit. The CAI is for e46m3.

I've gotta say I'm very pleased with how it all looks. When you open the hood you'd never think it didn't come that way from the factory. Beautiful!

Jay

[TXBDan]

Congrats, man. Awesome car.

[jayhudson]

I've had a chance to put a few hundred miles on the car so far. Really fun to drive fast. Can't wait to get it on track. Maybe a little hard to drive smoothly and an exhaust leak that'll have to be resolved.

If you look at the factory tune dyno run (post #43) you'll notice a rather large dip bewteen 4K and 5.2K. Then it picks up. In the final tune, that dip has been lessened quite a bit and there's also a larger bump starting about 5.3K. When driving modestly, there's an increase in power that makes being smooth a little difficult. Trying to describe it....... if I'm accelerating at say half throttle, when I reach a certain RPM there's a power increase that feels like kicking into passing gear.... big time. Even though I'm holding the gas pedal steady. It's very noticeable in first gear because of the lower ratio and 3.64 diff. Also 2nd. I haven't quite figured out at what RPM this occurs but it makes for difficulty trying to accelerate past that point without being full tilt. It causes me to short shift the lower gears to avoid the sudden power increase. I've talked with Dave about this and we'll see if there's anything that can be done with tune to smooth it out some. I don't want to hurt performance but, realistically, this car will be mostly a street car. Wonder if I can switch between 2 tunes? :-)

The exhaust leak seems to be at the flange between the headers and the custom center piece. Seems the tapered gasket provided by Status Gruppe may not be a tight fit. Gets stinky inside and around the car. Not just to the rear. David and I are discussing a resolution.

Just sent the M3 cluster off to have the odo mileage corrected to match the old cluster plus interim mileage. Dave was unable to do it without some special equipment. Car will be down for 10-15 days while this is being done.

Getting ready to order some new/bigger rubber and track pads. Fender rolling to happen soon.

Jay

[GGray]

Buy some V band clamps and get rid of the gaskets they seal much better and are easy to take on and off.

The ECU does not have the ability to switch between tunes you need a cloned ECU to swap. If they cannot get the tune right contact Randy at EPIC Motorsports he is a wizard with the S54.

In back you cannot roll the fenders on the E46. They have to be cut cleaned, then rolled, imagine a U filled with body sealer. Basically you have to cut the bottom of the U in the middle then clean the sealer out then you can roll it flat use POR15 on the cut edge to stop any rust and on any bare metal from cleaning. I am going to be doing my touring in two weeks I will post somewhere not sure on the work I do especially the rear fenders.

You can run 255's in back and front without any issues on 18x9's, in back 265 depending on wheel offset front a 265 is super tight unless you have -3.0 to -3.5 camber.